Pixel Binning for High Dynamic Range Color Image Sensor Using Square Sampling Lattice

We propose a new pixel binning scheme for color image sensors. We minimized distortion caused by binning by requiring that the superpixels lie on a square sampling lattice. The proposed binning schemes achieve the equivalent of 4.42 times signal strength improvement with the image resolution loss of 5 times, higher in noise performance and in resolution than the existing binning schemes. As a result, the proposed binning has considerably less artifacts and better noise performance compared with the existing binning schemes. In addition, we provide an extension to the proposed binning scheme for performing single-shot high dynamic range image acquisition.